


One Heart, Tenderly Beating

by erwneoten



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Asphyxiation, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Magical Torture?, Medical Stuff?, Slow Burn, basically the books except they're vampires, implications of canon-typical noncon/pedophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:32:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6736369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erwneoten/pseuds/erwneoten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damianos, champion of a notorious company of vampire hunters, awakens to find himself bound in the dungeons of Chateau de Vere, seat of the vampiric court. He is to be a gift to the beautiful and cruel heir apparent, a creature with hair of gold and eyes of ice, and a silver tongue. Some fates are far worse than death.</p><p>(AKA, I have lost all control of my life and this series translates really well into Vampire AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. En Tenebris, Lux Fortitudo

Damianos wakes up feeling as though he’s fallen off a horse. He’s lying face-down with his cheek pressed against cold stone, hands and feet bound behind him, vision black and blurry. All of his gear, his weapons, his boots and shirt, are all gone; he’s been left lying prone in pants only. His head is swimming, which makes it hard to gather his thoughts, but he’s been in similar situations enough times to know what to do on instinct. Slowly, cautiously, he tests his breathing, and then counts his fingers and toes-- all still attached, for the time being-- and then tries to roll his shoulders and--

There’s the pain, flooding in. Damen clenches his jaw, to keep himself from crying out and alerting his captors. His right shoulder is dislocated, and two… maybe three? Of his ribs are cracked, if not outright broken. That complicates things; he should be able to pop the joint back in, if he can ever get his hands free, but running will be difficult, and fighting near impossible. Stealth would be his best option, though he suspects whatever is holding him here intends on making use of him before too long.

Any hope he has of escaping before he’s noticed is dashed at the sound of footsteps ringing out against marble, fast approaching. By now his vision is starting to return, albeit still fuzzy around the edges, but clear enough that he can make out the shapes of the dreary sanctum he’s been deposited into. It’s mostly marble, antiquated and once-ornate but now pleasantly dilapidated (they always possessed a dramatic fondness for the pleasantly dilapidated, didn't they?), with a magnificently looping staircase leading up into the unknown, from which the footsteps now sound. Damen squints, and can just now make out the creature to which they belong, descending towards him with predatory purpose, silhouetted against the gloom.

Rail-thin and covered head to toe in lush blue damask, deep as night, with an almost-angelic cascade of yellow hair tumbled around his shoulders, incongruous with the ghastly pale shade of his skin, akin to the white marble of the chamber. Damen’s breath hitches in his throat. He recognizes that complexion; any good hunter would, and Damen is among the best. He is dealing with royalty, here.

The creature has made his way down the staircase and across the room, the heels of his black boots clicking menacingly against the tile, and now stands astride of where he lays on the floor, in silence. Waiting. Damen cranes his neck, suppressing a wince as he disturbs his shoulder, and tries to get a good look at the beast’s face.

Piercing, pale blue eyes and tight pink lips, drawn into a frown, are the only splashes of color on his otherwise-pallid visage. His features are carved from stone, fine and beautiful and devoid of any of the warmth of life, and as he examines Damen on the floor beneath him, he sneers, and Damen can just see the pointed ivory tips of his fangs, subtly menacing. “I see my uncle has dragged in a hunter. How vulgar.”

The beast lifts his boot and nudges at Damen’s side, experimentally, testing different spots until he finds Damen’s cracked ribs, and then he presses down until finally Damen can no longer hold it in, and cries out in pain, voice ringing through the hall. This seems to satisfy his captor, sneer contorting into a threatening grin, fangs now sharply bared.

“Not unlike a cat bringing a dead mouse to the doorstep, I’d imagine. Though, you aren’t dead yet, vermin.” He shifts his boot to Damen’s neck, pressing down there, and Damen feels his blood pounding in his ears as panic overtakes him, struggling against his bonds. “You will be soon.”

“Laurent.”

A command echoes from the top of the stairs, beyond what he can see from the floor, and the pressure lifts a moment before Damen thinks his consciousness might slip away from him. He heaves a gasping breath, as the creature snaps his head up to heed the call, scowl returning in agitation at being denied his kill.

Laurent, Damen knows. Every hunter knows. The situation is far more dire than he might have initially hoped. He appears to have awoken in the basement of none other than Chateau de Vere, seat of the Vampire Regent Lord and the heir apparent, Laurent. Laurent, who is standing before him with his boot at Damen’s throat, and the Regent Lord, presumably, who has just commanded his nephew to spare Damen’s life. For the time being, at least.

Another round of footsteps echoes, drawn-out, as the Regent Lord descends the stairs part way, so that he can look at the scene unfolding in judgement, from above. He cuts an imposing figure appropriate for his rank and reputation: straight-backed and broad-shouldered, masculine features lined only slightly, handsomely, by age, a trimmed black beard with a single striking streak of grey, and a great cloak thrown regally about his shoulders, in deep red velvet. If Damen had to imagine what the feared Vampire Lord would look like, it would probably be something akin to this. Laurent, a statuesque wisp with the features of a maiden, pales in comparison.

“Dear nephew, where are your manners? Is that any way to display the hospitality of Chateau de Vere to our newest visitor?” The Regent grins, though his tone is that of a chiding parent. Above him, Damen can feel the tension in Laurent’s boot, the feral desire to break his neck now at conflict with something else.

“He is a hunter. Would you have me bring him tea?”

“He is our esteemed guest, and I expect you to treat him as such. He is a gift from our newest ally.” Damen takes a moment to wonder, bitterly, which ally that could be, that has done this to him, before his attentions are drawn again to the threat at hand.

The Regent descends the rest of the way down the staircase, coming to rest just behind Laurent’s shoulder, the both of them looming over Damen. He lifts a hand to Laurent’s thigh, and forces his nephew’s foot from Damen’s neck and back onto the tile, grin never leaving his face. Laurent, pallid, stands tense and unmoving, his gaze fixed sulkily in front of him. “He is quite strong for a mortal, is he not? I have been suggesting you turn your own brood for quite a while now.”

“He is a _hunter_.” The bestial spite in Laurent’s tone as he spits the word catches at Damen’s nerves, and he has to suppress a shudder.

“Then he is already skilled, it would require even less effort of you to turn him into a valuable member of the clan. Still more effort than you are willing to put forth, apparently.” The Regent nudges Damen with his own foot, narrowly missing his injured ribs, prodding his bound wrists lower down his back in curiosity.

Cold shock runs through Damen as he realizes what the Regent is examining, splayed damningly across the muscles of his back. A rearing lion with a stake clutched in its teeth, inked into his skin in black and red, with the words _En Tenebris, Lux Fortitudo_ ribboned across. _In Darkness, Light is Strength._ The sigil of the Akielon Huntsmen, an oath to protect that marks all the brothers of his hunting party. Infamous to the creatures of the night, particularly those here, after Damen’s own triumph ten years prior. Laurent’s only response is to curl his lip into a snarl, tension in his eyes as they rove over the entirety of the tattoo.

The Regent gives a disapproving sniff at his nephew, before finally returning his hand to his side from where it lingered on Laurent's thigh. “A shame, really. They say those who oppose us so fiercely only do so because their blood tastes sweetest.”

“I would not deign to drink from an Akielon dog, uncle,” Laurent says, his voice bitter and scathing. “Why should a lord eat a hound’s rancid meat when he could feast on lamb?”

“You are not a lord, yet, and with that attitude I fear you shall never become one,” the Regent snaps, clicking his tongue at his nephew in disappointment, a troubled frown gracing his mouth. “Your brother had you spoiled you so, it is my fault for allowing this to happen.”

“How humble of you to say so, uncle,” Laurent speaks, through grit teeth.

Laurent's brother, Auguste de Vere. Another name every hunter knows, and Damen more than most. He hopes neither of the beasts can hear the way his heart is pounding, so hard he fears it will crack more of his ribs.

The Regent does not respond immediately to Laurent's remark, instead taking a moment to stare his nephew down, looking him over languorously from pale blonde head to booted toe (doubtless itching to resume its spot at Damen's neck), and shakes his head. “Auguste would have had an army of his own by now; it pains me to see you care so little for disappointing his memory. The hunter is a gift to you, nephew, and you will either turn him properly and, for once, do your duty to your line, or treat him as our honored guest until he succumbs to the trappings of his mortality.”

At this, the Regent lifts a hand to grip Laurent’s shoulder, hard, and Laurent’s back goes rigid as stone, his face unchanging. “You are not to harm him unduly. Is that clear?”

“Yes, uncle,” come Laurent’s words, forced. And then, “Thank you, uncle.”

“This is a generous opportunity to prove yourself worthy of your heritage, and of my respect, Laurent. Don’t squander it, as you have so many others.” With a final, punctuating squeeze of his nephew’s shoulder, the Regent Lord turns to leave, boots clacking up the stairs.

With the Regent gone, Laurent jams the toe of his boot back up against Damen’s ribs, and he groans, seizing up in pain. “I have never known a hunter to be so quiet. Don’t tell me they’ve cut out your tongue already, before I could even make you beg for mercy.”

“Your uncle,” Damen manages, through grit teeth, “told you to turn me. Well?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He grinds his foot into the wound, and Damen cries out. “For the way you dogs all talk of honor and sacrifice, of purging evil from this world, you certainly seem willing to drop it all at the first whiff of any real power. One has to wonder what you’re chasing in the first place: your _heroic_ ideals,” he says the word dramatically, as if it were a joke in itself, “Or the scent of opportunity for violence without consequence.”

Damen can’t stop the vicious chuckle that bubbles up in him; a bad idea, as it earns him another kick to the ribs, which he greets with another pained shout. “That’s a laugh, a monster like you preaching about violence--”

Laurent’s boot is back on his throat before he can finish, his breath cut off with a sickening gurgle. “A monster like me, certainly. You are a fool, hunter. Monsters come in many forms, or so your huntsman Kastor would prove.”

At the mention of his brother Damen’s body goes rigid, his brown eyes wide and wild. Laurent grins in smug satisfaction at the response he’s drawn from his captive, and allows Damen a brief reprieve from the force his boot.

Damen coughs and sputters as the pressure is relieved from his windpipe, breath coming in harsh spasming gasps that are part resulting from Laurent’s actions and part reaction to Laurent’s words. Damen could almost call the beast’s grin gleeful, were it not for the immense cruelty behind it, coupled with the sheer inhumanity of his person. “Oh, did you not think to wonder how you came to the Chateau? You’re more foolish than I thought.”

“What…” Damen forces out, in between heaving breaths, “What have you…”

“What have _I_ done? Nothing, beyond being the unfortunate recipient of an unwelcome and unseemly gift.” Another nudge of his ribs. “What the infamous hunter Kastor has done, however, is far more interesting to the both of us. Perhaps the death of his _beloved_ younger brother has finally shown him the futility in his crusade. Nothing has the power to grip the mortal heart quite like fear and cowardice, as they say.”

“The death of…” he breathes. He was not dead, he was here. And Kastor, what could he have…

“Oh, is that an unpleasant surprise? Your hero cut down?” The shock must be showing on Damen’s face, and he tenses his jaw in attempt to hide it, too late. “Word of it came yesterday morning. Damianos, bright young champion of the Akielon Huntsmen, mauled to death on a routine patrol by some pathetic alleyway demon. Barely enough left of him to bother burning, they said. I suppose, after his lone prodigious slaughter, he thought himself invincible. Good riddance.”

The situation is suddenly far more dangerous than even he could have ever imagined. The bite in Laurent’s voice as he speaks his own name, unknowingly, Damianos, rings furiously through his skull, threatening to split it in two. It had not made sense, the realization creeps over him like a strangling root, that he would be left alone, injured as he was. That he would be regarded with such a lack of concern, as if he were a run-of-the-mill hunter and not among the most notorious, especially here. As if he had not cut down, ten years prior, Auguste de Vere, former heir apparent to the de Vere lineage, pride and joy of the vampiric court, Laurent's older brother. As if he were not Damianos, champion and second-in-command of the Akielon Huntsmen.

Unless they thought him to be just another run-of-the-mill hunter. Unless they thought Damianos well and truly dead, slaughtered in an alley like an innocent. Laurent does not know who lies under his boot, he realizes. And if he did, Damen fears, no command from the Regent Lord would be enough to leash Laurent’s wrath.

He remains silent, eyes gazing up at the blonde demon, wide with fear.

This seems to please Laurent, who grins toothily, baring his fangs. “And then, faced with his own mortality, Kastor runs like a coward straight to Chateau de Vere, trailing you, one of his poor bastard hunters, drugged;” That explains the lingering fogginess in his head, the weight in his limbs, long after he’s reeled around to consciousness. Kastor couldn't have… “Beaten, bound, a sacrificial offering to trade for assurance of his own survival, when the time comes. My uncle graciously accepts, and now you lie beneath me like the dog you are, at my mercy.”

Laurent nudges at Damen’s cheek with his boot, the gesture a mockery of affection. “I almost pity you, gifted to the devil by your own beloved leader. And you said we were the monsters.”

“You’re lying, Kastor wouldn’t-- he’d never--”

“You really doubt that a man in power would doom a subordinate to agony and anguish in order to save his own life? Then you truly do not know humanity.”

Damen grits his teeth, hot fury rising inside him, struggling against his bonds in spite of his injuries. Kastor is his brother, his friend, his protector. They’ve been at each other's sides since Damen was a child; they've fought together since Damen came of age, with the huntsmen at their backs. He had been there when Damen was given his tattoos of the sigil, made his first kill, when he had… He would not do this. This is all a lie, a demon’s trick.

He tries to keep his voice deadly calm, eyes trained on the beast before him, “You cannot-- your uncle commanded you not to kill me.”

A wide feral grin spreads across Laurent’s delicate features, transforming them into something more monstrous right before him, blue eyes lit up with malice and glistening fangs proudly in view, a promise. “My dear hunter, you of all people should have learned this lesson well. There are fates far, far worse than death.”


	2. Imperium in Sanguinem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After hours of isolation, Damen receives a visitor, and is gifted with more tattoos. It does not go well for him.

Damianos is left alone, still bound as he had been, for what feels like days. Realistically, he knows it's likely only been hours, but with no way to tell the passage of time from this dismal marble prison, coupled with the painful throb of his broken ribs growing steadily harder to ignore, he feels as though it's been an eternity.

He had scoffed when he first realized he was being left alone indeterminately, wondering if this “fate worse than death” Laurent had dramatically promised him was actually just the chance to escape without further injury. After attempting to scoot himself over to the staircase, however, and feeling the harsh grind of bone on broken bone within his chest that had pained him to the point he thought he might black out from it, he understood that this punishment might be more insidious than he'd considered.

Since then, there's been nothing. No guards, no servants, not even the faint sound of footsteps echoing from whatever may lie beyond the swooping marble staircases. Damen is alone, with nothing but his pain and his thoughts.

His mind goes immediately to Laurent's story, of his own death and Kastor's betrayal, trying to pick apart grains of truth from all the terrible lies. He believes that he'd been drugged, bound and dragged here; that falls neatly in line with the nature of his injuries, and the lingering fog in his mind that is only now starting to clear. As memories trickle back in fragments he can recall no fight, no suspicious characters, only business as usual among the huntsmen, and then… nothing. And then this. His stomach turns.

It follows, then, as Laurent had implied, that this was not done to him by a vampire, but a human, particularly if his current jailors seek to turn him. Those of the de Vere clan have more subtle ways to control a mortal mind, even that of a hunter, if he were caught off-guard as Damen clearly had been, and vampires rarely deal in poisons, or anything else that might sour the blood. 

Laurent's tale of the death of Damianos could go either way: believed true by the de Veres (who surely delighted in the news), or a lie designed to cast him into despair at the thought of his presumed-idol falling in such a pathetic manner. This turns his stomach too, as he thinks about it.

Auguste, the shining star of the empire of night, turned at the height of his strength and as great and terrible a beast as any vampire could hope to be, had been slain squarely in his stronghold at Manor Marlas by Damianos at sixteen, in an improbable act of heroism and adrenaline. And now, Damianos, twenty-six and a tested huntsman, has been slaughtered by mere gutter-dwelling wretches in a back alley, in an improbable act of carelessness and shame. Damen can see how this story might appeal to Laurent.

If the de Veres know it for falsehood of their own creation, they ought to be girding the Chateau for attack; the Akielon Huntsmen do not leave behind their own, no matter how subordinate they believe him to be. If it truly is a rumor, however, and widely believed, they might think the huntsmen too distracted by the death of their champion to chase down a lesser member in their clutches. And, if the huntsmen believe him dead, he could expect no rescue from this hellish place. Grimacing, he shifts, testing his shoulder. The pain in his ribs has almost subsided enough that he might make another foolhardy attempt to reach the stairs.

And then there is the matter of Kastor-- no. He will not even entertain the possibility of this. Kastor is his brother, his mentor and protector since the death of their father, and would damn no man for his personal gain, least of all Damen. Kastor is uninvolved, he is thoroughly certain, and is either grieving the death of his younger brother, or preparing the huntsmen for war in order to retrieve him. Damen allows himself to imagine both possibilities, and he cannot be sure which is worse.

Kastor's innocence, however, comes the grim realization bubbling up within him, does not rule out the possibility of betrayal from elsewhere. The entire plot is too brilliantly orchestrated to be coincidence, he realizes-- to falsify his death and gift him in secret to those who would see him eviscerated if they truly knew who they held in their dungeons… but to what end?

Damen doesn't have time to think on it further, as just then he hears the echoing sound of footsteps at the top of the stairs, cacophonous in the stifling silence of the chamber.

There are three, this time. Damen counts them as they descend, neck craning to catch a glimpse of his visitors. At the first hint of deep blue damask, laced tightly around a willowy frame and accented with angelic blonde, he scowls. Laurent, clearly not content with letting him languish in the brutal isolation of his captivity, has returned to torment him.

The other two are guards, one taller than the other, who come to rest just behind Laurent as he resumes his previous position, looming at Damen's side. They look less the delicate, dramatic creatures that the de Vere line is known to produce and more the common beasts that Damen is used to dealing with; the colorless skin that appears porcelain on Laurent turns corpselike and ghastly on his guards, their sunken features ghoulish where Laurent's are carved in marble. But ivory fangs mark them all, despite appearances, as dangerous in precisely the same way. Damen frowns.

“I seem to recall, when last we spoke, you were questioning the true nature of humanity?” Laurent says with smug satisfaction. “You must have appreciated all this time to think. How has that been going for you?”

“Kastor would not do this,” he growls, surly and defiant, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Laurent’s pale eyes light up, like those of a child who has just found a new feature on an already-favored toy, one that will be very entertaining to break.

“I admit, hunter, I had not expected this level of naivete from an Akielon dog. I’m grateful, actually, this will make shattering your hopes far more enjoyable.. How are your ribs feeling, by the way?” The sadistic delight in Laurent’s voice is already palpable, and when he shifts his foot Damen flinches before he can stop himself, and the cruel grin widens further.

“What do you want?” Damen mumbles, trying to keep from sounding resigned. He does not want to deal with an arrogant beastling’s malicious needling.

“I hear you huntsman are very interested in tattoos. I thought I might give you a few more, as a welcoming gift, since my uncle will not allow me to simply kill you.” He sneers the words, the ivory points of his teeth showing again, and then snaps a command to his guards, “Prop him up. Cut his wrists free but leave his legs bound, and hold his arms steady for me-- dislocate his other shoulder if you must.”

They do as bid, one grabbing each of his biceps and hefting him from the floor with unnatural ease, and complete disregard for his injuries. Damen’s first instinct is to struggle against their grip, but the final line of Laurent’s command gives him pause-- if he’s to have any hope of escaping, it would not do to have two useless arms. He inhales sharply as he's brought to his knees, feeling for the first time the true extent of the damage to his ribs, but staunchly he refuses to let Laurent take any more satisfaction in his pain, and wills himself to remain silent.  At last, he is upright, and can look his captor over without twisting his neck.

Laurent, in turn, can fully look over him, which he had stupidly not anticipated. Laurent’s icy eyes fixate immediately on his chest, and Damen’s blood runs cold as realization pierces him. “I see you already have more tattoos than anticipated.”

A simple black cross is inked across his left pectoral, over his heart, previously hidden while he lay on his stomach. While all members of the huntsmen receive the sigil across their back, this marking is more private, personal-- one he shared only with his father, while he still lived, and with Kastor. It was the first tattoo he had gotten, at fifteen years old, a ward of protection to commemorate him joining his family’s hunt.

And then, at sixteen, in the throes of death Auguste had lashed out with claws bared and swiped Damen across the chest, rending fabric, flesh and ink in one dizzying strike. Auguste died moments later, a blackened stake through his heart, and had Damen nearly bled out escaping Marlas before the wound could be treated. The tattoo now bore four rippling scars across it, the vestiges of Auguste’s final action, and in foolish arrogance Damen had boasted the scars proudly, evidence of his heroism. And now they might mean his damnation.

Laurent’s eyes rove across the scars, gaze steady, and for a brief, breathless moment Damen wonders if he will soon have similar marks across his throat, the younger brother finishing what the older brother had tried to do, and failed.

But the moment never comes. Laurent does not recognize Auguste’s legacy, attention flicking up instead to Damen’s face with his cruel grin restored, and it’s all Damen can do to keep himself from heaving a sigh of relief.

“Your hand,” he says, an order. The way the guards’ grip tightens on his shoulders tells him he has no choice but to obey. With a slight wince, he extends his right hand.

Laurent grasps it, clutching his wrist in pale, graceful fingers and turning his palm towards the sky, veins exposed. The touch sends a flutter of fear through Damen’s chest, and he can’t keep his eyes away.

“This doesn’t have to hurt, you know,” Laurent says, almost giddy with cruelty.

“Do I look like I’m struggling?” Damen growls through grit teeth, attempting to steel himself for whatever unknown horror is to come.

Laurent’s smile widens, manic and menacing. “Oh, I meant that it doesn’t have to hurt, but I’m going to make it hurt anyway. Struggle if you wish, I will only enjoy this more.”

And before Damen has time to question, Laurent brings his own thumb up to his mouth, pricking its pad on the point of his fang until a droplet of blood wells there, quivering and ruby-red. In a smooth motion, he clenches his hand around Damen’s wrist, pressing the blood spot down hard against exposed veins on the underside there and holding him steady. “ _ Imperium in sanguinem _ ,” he hisses, as his nails dig into Damen’s skin.

He screams. There is nothing he can do to stop it, all self-control lost as the fire of Laurent’s blood burns through his nerves and turns his skin to ash. He struggles against it, struggles for his life, desperately, a mouse caught in a trap, but Laurent’s iron grip holds him unnaturally in place, forcing him to endure this.

It fades, not quickly enough, and by the time Laurent loosens his fingers from Damen’s wrist, Damen is left panting and drained, hair damp with sweat and clinging to his forehead. “You-- what…” is all he can manage, in between gusts of shallow breath. Laurent withdraws his touch, and Damen is left holding his hand outstretched, unable to put it down as horror creeps over him.

Encircling his wrist where Laurent had gripped him are runes, letters written in some arcane language long-forgotten, branded into the skin and rippling with the last flickering embers of hellfire. Damen gasps for air but none will come; only panic wells up in his lungs as he watches the runes settle until they resemble black ink, a demonic shackle forever burned into his flesh. Binding him.

“I did warn you it would hurt. Did you think I would let you run around the Chateau unrestricted?” Laurent, casually, as if he had not just defiled Damen’s person with his hellish blood ritual. “If I cannot have you  _ dead _ I will at least have you  _ servile.  _ Your other hand.”

No.

The pain has stripped him to his core, and the beast’s cool arrogance, in response-- Something within him boils over, hot, righteous anger like magma flooding through singed nerves, visceral. He balls his ruined fist before he can think and raises it to strike Laurent, cathartic suicide--

A subtle tilt of Laurent’s blonde head, and the blow does not go through. Damen’s hand is suspended mid-swing, held in place by some invisible force that he lacks the strength to fight. Laurent is no longer smiling.

“Or did you think me defenseless, another creature for you to slaughter? Your other hand, I said _. _ ”

There is a flicker in his eyes, clear and cold as ice, and by no will of his own Damen lowers his hand, letting it hang pinned at his side. Bound. He can do nothing but stare, aghast, his own overwhelming fury and terror beating him into petrified silence.

“I will not ask again, hunter.  _ Your. Hand. _ ”

It is the guards who have to wrench his left hand away from his side and hold it outstretched before him, and the burning memory of pain makes it impossible not to strain against their grip, futile as he knows it to be. Laurent presses at the cut in his thumb, drawing another ripe droplet of blood.

_ Imperium in sanguinem _ . Damen is screaming again.

“Let his arms free, but keep him upright,” Laurent commands of his guards once he's finished with Damen's other wrist, voice joyless.

Damen's arms drop to his side, the guards gripping him by shoulders only to keep him from collapsing, which he is certain he would do otherwise, if only out of spite for Laurent's orders. He keeps his eyes cast relentlessly forward, trained on Laurent with as much outrage and loathing as he can muster. Laurent, cooly, does not break his gaze.

“You hunters, for all your stubborn arrogance, are no less fragile than the rest of your pathetic kind.” There is vitriol in Laurent's voice, and something dark passes behind his eyes. Damen's hands lift, trembling, without his permission, to wrap around his own throat. “You would snap your own neck if I willed it, right here, simple. And that would be the end. You would never get the chance to slay a demon ever again.”

“Bloodthirsty beast,” Damen spits, “you cannot kill me.”

It is the wrong thing to say. Damen's arms snap down immediately to his sides at Laurent's furious will, with force enough to strain the muscles in his biceps. Laurent’s cruel eyes examine him the way a butcher might regard a crazed swine, methodically deciding the best way to dissect something abhorrent. Slowly he reaches a pale hand up to Damen's neck, and traces a slender finger along the pulsing line of his jugular, and Damen is certain he can feel the way his heart pounds in fear.

“Bloodthirsty beast,” Laurent repeats dully, unpleasant scowl playing across thin-drawn lips. “Thank you, dog, for the reminder. I had almost forgotten the most important part of this.”

“What are you--” but the rest is ripped from Damen's mouth before he can give it voice. Laurent bites his thumb again, drawing another menacing rivulet of blood, and clasps his hands around Damen's neck with the strength to strangle.

_ Imperium in sanguinem. _

The pain does not let up this time, and Damen does not have the breath to scream, wide-eyed and gasping for relief that does not come. The intense burning of the ritual through his every nerve is succeeded by the sharp, icy pain of Laurent's will gripping his throat, wringing the air from his lungs.

“I cannot kill you, dear hunter? Don't make me laugh, you will not survive it. You have been thrown into the pit with the monsters, now, it would do you well to hold your foolish tongue if you wish to keep it.” The bite in Laurent's voice is scathing, fangs bared. He narrows his eyes, and Damen's windpipe constricts further.

“Your petty heroics and mortal arrogance mean  _ nothing _ here, do you understand? If am a beast then you are my prey.  _ I _ am the hunter, here, and you are a dog, at my mercy. Is that clear? You are  _ vermin _ .”

Blackness threatens at the edges of Damen's vision as he feels his lungs crumbling within him. Laurent is going to kill him, here, in spite of his uncle’s orders. He is going to make true the rumors; Damianos is dead.

“I hope whatever gave you that scar over your chest died cursing your name. I hope you watched it fade away. I hope you felt pity for the _ poor, wretched creature _ you gutted mercilessly on your stake, and I hope you felt disgusted with yourself, for sympathizing with a  _ monster _ . Because that’s what you are, that’s what you all are.  _ Monsters. _ ”

Every inflamed word is punctuated with a burst of crushing force around his throat; the rage in Laurent’s voice all he can hear as he struggles to cling to consciousness, to life.

“You dogs can all burn. I hope Damianos is  _ rotting in hell, right now, _ right beside my brother.”

Then, darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for an OVERWHELMINGLY amazing response! All your comments are so wonderful and definitely helped spur me on getting another chapter out on the double (though I can't promise every update will happen this quickly, I do have to do homework eventually! :x) I've got things planned out at least through another two chapters, so we'll see where this goes :^)


	3. Morsus Amor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damen is finally taken to the infirmary to have his injuries mended. He takes the opportunity to meet some of the other residents of Chateau de Vere, without Laurent's supervision.

Consciousness returns to him in flashes.

He sees a lined face, brown-eyed and devoid of any warmth or color, another vampire, peering quizzically over him. “He’ll pull through. Without brain damage, even, probably. Lucky for you, my lord.”

“Yes, lucky for me,” drawls Laurent’s voice from elsewhere in the room, beyond Damen’s vision, sounding as though he does not feel particularly lucky. Blackness fades in again.

 

The second time it’s with a splitting headache. The older beast that had examined him before is elsewhere, though he cannot tell where; the pounding in his skull makes him think twice about twisting his neck to look around, and his vision is faded and blurry besides.

Laurent’s voice, again, “More love bites? Or did one of them finally take, this time?” His tone is almost affectionate teasing, clearly not directed at Damen.

“Piss off, he will. He just prefers me  _ warm _ ,” comes a sneering, indignant squeak in response. Damen's head pounds; a child? Here?

There's a tongue cluck in response, from Laurent, “I suppose he must, if he has waited this long. Hopefully he won't wait too much longer, for your sake. You are thirteen? Fourteen?”

“Shut it!”

The thought of a child here makes him dizzy, makes his head ache. The thought of a child, of  _ anyone  _ speaking that way to Laurent, who had just near-strangled him for the crime of being alive, and living to tell the tale makes his vision spin. He shuts his eyes tightly, willing the pain away.

 

The third time he awakes, he does so more concretely.

“Welcome back. Glad you made it.” The same voice from before, the older beast. Damen takes a slow glance around, vision clearing.

He is not in the marble prison anymore; he is in a parlor of some sort, with faded green-and-gold wallpaper and dusty ornate standing screens set up at odd intervals, behind them faint silhouettes of benches very much like the one he lies atop, flat on his back. A medical bay, of sorts, an odd feature in a stronghold of the undead.

The older vampire, presumably a physician assigned to keep him alive, is peering down over him in examination. Beyond him, seated in plain dining chairs positioned against the wall, is Laurent, looking bored and mildly agitated with dark legs gracefully crossed, and the child.

“Ha!” comes his shrill voice again, on the cusp of breaking, “I told you you couldn't kill him, I win!” The child is indeed alive; the excitable flush to his cheeks confirms that, and Damen can't help but stare in horror, wondering what terrible circumstances might lead to a child being kept alive in a den of bloodsucking demons.  _ Love bites _ , he had said, Damen remembers foggily,  _ he likes me warm _ . 

Compared to Laurent's dour and tightly-laced garments, the child is dressed garishly, in opulent sheer silks that expose his hips and throat and collarbone, perhaps to mark him as living. His curled brown hair falls just past his chin, leaving in plain view all the bandages and bruises that line his neck and shoulders, and Damen feels like he might throw up for a moment as he imagines what this child has faced in such a hellish place.

Laurent, appalling undisturbed, merely clicks his tongue and pulls a gold coin from his pocket to pass on to the boy. “I suppose next time I will have to try harder, won't I?”

“I'm going to tell him you said that. He'll be angry at you.” A piglike grin spreads across his face, momentarily ruining it's juvenile beauty. “He's already angry at you; he wanted you to go see him instead of talking to me.”

“Well, if he's already angry, there's no reason I shouldn't take my time here.”

The physician pauses in examining Damen for a moment to holler distractedly over his shoulder, “You're all patched up for now, Nicaise, you're free to go.”

There's a sinister giggle from the boy as he hops off his chair, “I'm going to tell him you said that too. I'm going to tell him  _ right now _ .”

“Wait a moment more, you'll want to see this.” Laurent's voice, casual, stops the child in his tracks. “They're going to need to break his ribs to reset them.”

Though Laurent's words are to the boy (Nicaise?), his cold blue-eyed gaze is fixed unwaveringly on Damen, smug cruelty in his smile. A shiver runs down Damen's spine, first at Laurent's chilled demeanor, and then as the content of his words sinks in. The physician has either once more tuned out their conversation, or merely has no response. Nicaise pauses, considering the potential spectacle at hand, and climbs back into his chair beside Laurent, eyes greedy.

The physician finishes his preliminary examinations and leaves for a moment, wordlessly, to fetch supplies for the procedure Laurent threatened. Immediately Damen tries to prop himself up, perhaps against better judgement considering the state of his ribs, only to find himself unable to move his arms, wrists pinned to the table by an unseen force. The memory of Laurent's blood ritual floods back to him, as does a ghost of the pain that accompanied it, and he turns his head to scowl silently at his golden-haired jailor. Laurent only grins joylessly in response.

The elder vampire is back to looking over him, lifeless fingers moving deftly over the break in his ribs, testing the strength of the wounded bone with much more care than either Laurent or the Regent Lord had shown the day prior. “It's only started healing wrong; should be a simple break, and then a bandage. Not worth knocking you out-- can you hold him steady, m’lord?”

At the request, Laurent nods, and sickeningly, Damen feels the invisible pressure around his wrists strengthen. He grits his teeth and clenches his eyes shut, preparing for the worst.

“Just hold still a moment, and--” the physician says, and Damen grunts in pain and strains against the magic pinning him, as the bone is broken again by sheer ocareful force of the physician’s unnatural vampires  strength.

Nicaise makes a rude noise in outrage almost immediately. “That wasn't worth it at all, he didn't even scream!” Before Laurent can protest he is out of his chair and heading to the door, and Damen very barely manages to suppress the smug smile that comes to his face. “Laurent, I'm gonna tell him you kept me here for this! I'm gonna tell him you made him wait for nothing.”

There is a very subtle roll of Laurent's eyes in response, one that Damen is almost sure he imagines, for how quickly it fades into that familiar icy glare. “Seems the dog has a higher tolerance for pain than he'd previously led us to believe.” Of course he does, Damen thinks, pridefully, he’s been hunting monsters since he was a boy. He can handle far worse than Laurent could probably ever throw at him, when he's not hogtied and drugged and disoriented.

“Very well,” Laurent continues with a soft sigh, “Come, Nicaise, let's go get scolded. Paschal, do you trust our  _ esteemed _ hunter not to be so stupid as to attack the man repairing his bones, in the middle of an unfamiliar and heavily-armed castle?” It is presented as a question to the elder vampire, but Damen recognizes it as a pointed threat. He glowers, but gives a single nod and tries not to imagine it as admitting defeat.

Paschal glances between him, assessingly, and Laurent, before echoing Damen's nod. “No, my lord, I don't think he'd do that. And if he does, well… I fancy my odds against a wounded, unarmed mortal, hunter or no. Better than yours if you keep your uncle waiting any longer, anyways.”

And like that, Laurent is gone with Nicaise on his heels. A moment passes, and Damen feels the pressure on his wrists fade, relief.

Paschal wastes no time returning to his business, sparing not even a wary quirk of an eyebrow at the fact that his hostage is now completely unbound. “I'll need to guide the fracture back into place, and then bandage your chest so it holds. It'll be easier if you sit up.”

Damen briefly considers punching him, knocking him out and making a break for it, but he wouldn't get very far with the state of his injuries. And Laurent, regrettably, infuriatingly, is right; the Chateau de Vere is a notorious labyrinth of dourly ornate rooms and debauched decadence, and he'd find guards far sooner than he'd find a way out.

Instead, he moves to prop himself up on his elbows, only to wince and falter when a lance of pain shoots through his shoulder. Still dislocated, he'd almost forgotten, amidst every other terrible wound he's received in the past couple of hours. Paschal clicks his tongue, and leans forward to help Damen to a sit. “I imagine you'd be grateful if I were to fix that one first, huh?”

“It would make it easier for me to fight you.” Damen shrugs-- ill-advised, says the sharp pain in his shoulder that follows.

“You aren't going to fight me.”

“I'm not,” Damen concedes, and allows Paschal’s frigid hands to prod at his shoulder. “What business does a vampire have learning to mend people, anyway? I thought your kind healed unnaturally fast, unaided.”

“Everyone has to do something before they're turned, some just keep on doing it afterwards, too. Had a good gig going for a while, in my hometown, a night clinic. Common folk would come in with everything you could think of, stubbed toes to syphilis, and I'd fix them up for pennies-- don't need much to get by, when you're like this. And if they weren't gonna make it, I'd drink a bit off the top, no harm done.”

“And what happened?” Damen is almost afraid to ask, knot growing in his stomach.

“Townsfolk found out, called in a hunter. Burnt the whole operation to the ground. Found my way here, afterwards; it's safer, even if I'm not helping folks as much as I was. But we all do what we can. Ready?” The vampire grips Damen's bicep with one hand, and his shoulder with the other. Damen braces himself, and Paschal pushes into the joint.

There's a sickening  _ pop! _ and he feels a wave of relief, rotating his shoulder properly in its socket for the first time since he awoke here, to test it. Paschal stands back, looking satisfied with his handiwork.

“I… thank you,” Damen says, and then, “I'm sorry. About your clinic, I mean. I would not have gone after someone doing good work like that, vampire or no.”

He feels the vampire's gaze on him, long and appraising. “I appreciate the sentiment, hunter. You got a name?”

“Damen,” he answers, unthinking.

His blood turns to ice. Slowly, warily, he turns his head to see Paschal giving him a queer look, suspicion flooding in quicker than he can stop it.

“N-not that Damen. Obviously.” He swears to himself, internally, he had never been a good liar. “It's a surprisingly common name among hunter families; there's four in the Akielon huntsmen alone.”

And then, when he sees Paschal hasn't completely bought his story, still in consideration, “Well, three now. Two, if you don't think I'll make it out of here. But they say the Damen you're probably thinking about-- Damianos-- is dead. Right?”

Damen puts on what he hopes is a rueful expression, and prays it will be convincing enough to inspire a change in subject. Paschal gives him one final glance of suspicion before returning to his examination. “I have heard that, yes.”

“So it's true, then? Not just some rumor Laurent made up to further his cruelty?”

Paschal lifts his head for a moment wearing that odd look again, and for a moment Damen fears he's gone too far, insulting the vampire's lord. But Paschal only squints at him a moment. “The heir? No, Laurent wouldn't say something like that unless he were sure it was true. Even if he was trying to be cruel to you.” He deftly nudges Damen's ribs back into place, fingers delicate and careful with the bruised skin, especially compared to Laurent's earlier brutality. Damen has no trouble imagining the heir making things up just to hurt him. “If anything I'd bet he's sore he wasn't the one to do the deed, considering what Damianos did to Auguste.”

Though the danger of recognition is clear, Damen isn't strong enough to resist the temptation to ask further after Laurent, and Auguste and himself. He doesn't get the chance.

At that moment, the door to the infirmary bursts open, and a guard rushes in with a pale body slung over his shoulder. The first wild thought that comes unbidden to him is that it’s Laurent-- that his uncle has finally lashed out and punished him properly for all his disrespect. But as the guard hurriedly deposits the body on the examination table next to Damen’s, he can see that while the delicate porcelain shade of skin matches that of his jailor, the ruffled mop of hair is a sandy, honeyed blonde instead of striking spun-gold, and the body is clad in far less clothing than Laurent would probably ever allowed himself to be seen in, punishment or no. A silk tunic, not unlike the one Nicaise had worn, is pushed down to the hips despite being intended to be worn hanging from the shoulders, the elegant white fabric soaked through with blood.

Paschal, apparently used to such dire interruptions, wastes no time in abandoning Damen to attend to the situation at hand, frowning in mind concern as he unfurls pale limbs to assess the damage. “Another from the menagerie? Let me guess, Govart again?”

The guard nods in response. The poor soul is alive, or was not too long ago, Damen realizes as he watches Paschal check a delicate wrist for a pulse. He didn’t have the look of a vampire; the pallor of his skin is from bloodlessness rather than undeath, his cheeks still gently flushed, and if Damen looks closely he can just see the faint rise and fall of his chest. Still alive, for the time being. He is bleeding heavily, however, and with his eyes Damen traces the flow of blood up to two familiar puncture wounds in the flesh of his slender neck, in the artery there.

Drained. Damen bites back bile. Paschal had called him part of the menagerie.

The physician finds the wound as quickly as Damen does and applies pressure to try and stop the bleeding, swearing under his breath. The guard, apparently practiced in dealing with incidents such as this, fetches cotton and bandages and vials of what Damen presumes to be antiseptic, handing them off to Paschal as needed. Damen watches as the wounds are cleaned and dressed, and eventually the victim’s breathing steadies, his long blonde lashes fluttering weakly as he drifts into consciousness.

Now confident that no one will be dying in his charge, Paschal pauses a moment to wipe his brow, and send the guard back to his post. He can handle the situation further, he asserts.

Then, he turns to Damen, face stern. “I’ve got to grab supplies to deal with… this. I’ll be gone under a minute, no funny business from you. You still need your ribs bound, remember.”

Damen nods in response, a bit perplexed that Paschal would trust him enough tell him as such, but with no further assurance needed the physician is gone from the room.

Briefly, again, Damen considers making a break for it, but his injuries are still an issue and the guard can’t be too far off. Better to wait to be properly healed if he wants to stand a chance at a true escape, as much as it feels like sitting idle and vulnerable. He sighs, and turns his attention again to the patient beside him.

He is starting to awaken in earnest now, wide unfocused eyes flitting nervously around the room and lithe limbs trembling out of weakness or terror, or probably both. Damen feels a pang of sympathy. 

“Hey, everything’s going to be okay. You’re being patched up now, you’re stable, you’ll be fine,” he says, trying to keep his tone reassuring. In truth, he has no idea if anything will be okay.

The poor thing starts in response to Damen’s voice, releasing a sharp gasp and looking around wildly until his eyes fall upon the source of the words, and Damen feels like he’s just stepped on a dog’s paw for causing such a panic. “No, no, it’s okay, I won’t hurt you. I’m not one of them, I’m a mortal, like you. I’m a hunter.”

“A hunter,” he breathes in sharply, as if to utter the word was unthinkable. Even as a feeble half-whisper, there is a pleasing melodic quality to his voice. “What are… how…”

“I was captured, they’re holding me prisoner now. The Regent Lord says he wants to turn me, but the heir refuses… and you?” he asks, thinking of Nicaise, who seemed excited by the prospect of becoming one of these beasts. “Are you also a prisoner, here?”

“I am-- they keep us as pets, of the court, in the menagerie,” he murmurs, turning his eyes from Damen in shame. “We are here for their amusement, and to feed from.”

“A feeder,” Damen repeats through gritted teeth, trying to bite back the nausea at the thought. “They keep a menagerie of feeders here.”

Beside him, the pet nods meekly, and looks as though he might almost cry. Damen’s blood boils in his veins.

He has busted a handful of feeder dens before-- none nearly so opulent as to be dubbed a menagerie, more often dingy basements beneath derelict mansions that reek of fear and death. Particularly depraved vampire clans will kidnap mortals to use as glorified livestock, keeping them locked up as a constant source of fresh blood, draining them to the point of near death and then allowing them to recover, only to drain them again. Usually by the time the huntsmen find them, most are too far gone into madness to be saved.

“What is your name?” Damen forces the words out.

The feeder looks at him as though no one’s ever asked him this before, as if such qualities like a name are irrelevant in his role here. “...Erasmus, sir.”

“Erasmus,” Damen repeats, tasting the righteous fury on his tongue as he says it. “My name is Damen, and I am a hunter. I have sworn to protect the innocent from the monsters of this world, and I swear to you now that I will free you from this place, and any others who have suffered as you have.”

“S-sir…” A soft blush creeps up over Erasmus’s cheeks. “I, you couldn't--”

“I don’t know how, yet. But I will. That is a promise.”

Erasmus opens his mouth to speak, but only stares, breathless. Then, the faintest ghost of a smile, unmistakable, plays across his delicate features, and he nods. “Thank you, Damen.”

There is another moment, and then Paschal returns.

He is carrying not more specialized medical supplies, as Damen had expected, but a bowl of soup, steaming hot. Damen’s stomach gurgles at the smell-- he cannot recall the last time he has eaten.

“Red beans and barley, to help you recover from blood loss.” Paschal sets the bowl on the table where Erasmus lays. “You’ll want to sit to eat it. Don’t rush yourself, it’ll be a few minutes before it’s cool enough to eat, anyway. I plan on keeping you here for a week or so, give you plenty of time to recover before sending you back.”

Damen recognizes this as a gesture of kindness from the vampire.  _ We all do what we can _ , he'd said.

Erasmus pushes himself to a slow but stable sit, color steadily returning to his face, and Paschal once again turns his attentions to Damen, unfurling a roll of bandages. “Now, about your ribs.”

Paschal gently maneuvers the bones into place with one hand, the other clapped steadyingly on Damen's shoulder. “Try not to move too much,” he says, once the ribs have been properly aligned, “But don't hold your breath, either, that's the worst thing you can do. I'll bandage it too tight and your lungs will collapse.”

Damen realizes he has indeed been holding his breath and releases it, and focuses on continuing the rhythm of inhale and exhale, despite the slight pain that pricks his side as his ribcage expands. This seems to satisfy Paschal, who begins to wrap Damen's torso in bandages, slow and careful.

“Who is Govart?” Damen chances to ask, a pause in the measure of his breath. The name had been thrown out earlier by Paschal, as the one he assumed had nearly killed the poor feeder. Erasmus, who has been watching Damen be mended with shy eyes and occasional dainty bites of soup, now turns ashen and casts his gaze darkly aside.

“A brute,” comes Erasmus’s feeble mumble, under his breath. Paschal sighs, and pauses in his bandaging.

“He is a member of the Regent Lord’s personal guard, some mercenary before he was turned. He is of renowned loose morals; the Regent keeps him on hand to take care of more unpleasant business.” Though Paschal’s words are diplomatic, Damen can hear the distaste in them, fuelling his own the more he hears about Govart, and all the players in this hellish court. “In return, Govart is given free reign of the chateau, and all its  _ facilities _ .”

Erasmus shivers at the word, a mortified blush creeping up his face as he stares back down into his soup. Paschal returns to bandaging, his expression kept pointedly neutral. “Some things are just to be endured, hunter.”

There is silence, afterwards, as Paschal finishes wrapping his chest and tying off the bandages with a small triumphant pat, and then goes to check Erasmus's pulse again. Satisfied with the quick progress of the feeder’s recovery, he goes to dig around within his supply cabinet.

“If the dressings start to slip, come to me and I'll re-tie them. Try not to twist around too much, and remember to keep your breathing--”

He's interrupted by another loud, urgent knock at the infirmary door. Paschal sighs softly.

Damen grimly expects another half-dead feeder, but this time it's only a guard. Damen recognizes him as one that had held his shoulder while Laurent singed his will into Damen's skin back in the marble chamber, the shorter one, plain-looking. He tries to keep the scowl from his face, but Paschal seems unbothered, glancing up from his stores. “Jord?”

“The Regent Lord requests the hunter be brought to his hearing with the heir. Sir. As soon as possible. I ran--”

The guard looks from Paschal back to Damen. Paschal also casts Damen an odd look, and his stomach lurches when he realizes the look is pity. Slowly, the physician straightens, running a hand through his thinning hair and looking very tired indeed. “Very well, I've just finished with his ribs. Let me grab something for the pain, and he's yours to take.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you guys I wasn't always that quick a writer (well, that and the Overwatch beta)! I was so excited to get to this chapter and finally get to write characters beyond Damen and Laurent, but it ended up being really tough to slog through, on top of being almost twice as long! I'm happy with the final product, though, and after next chapter things will start getting REALLY fun!
> 
> As always, thank you guys SO much for all your lovely comments and support! I haven't been as good at replying this time around, but I read everything!! <3


	4. Innocentiae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jord leads Damen to the vampiric court, where Laurent and the Regent discuss his fate, and Damen proposes a deal to his monstrous captor.

The guard, Jord, Paschal had called him, does not lead him straight to whatever chamber he's awaited in by Laurent and the Regent Lord, but instead to a linen closet. Damen is, understandably, confused.

“Did…” he chances to ask the guard, whose head is buried sifting through cloth. “Did you not say the Regent Lord wanted to see me immediately?”

The vampire pauses to glance oddly back at Damen, and then gives dismissive snort of a laugh, as if Damen had said something stupid. “Not like that, he doesn't. It's court, you've got to wear a shirt at least.” He returns to digging through the closet, mumbling beneath his breath, “If there's a shirt in the castle big enough for you.”

Jord pulls out a bundle of white fabric, holds it up to Damen appraisingly, shakes his head, and folds it haphazardly back into the cabinet. He does this three or four times, with increasing agitation, before finally finding one with a ghost of a chance of fitting.

“Court?” Damen asks, as Jord tosses him the garment to try and squeeze over his shoulders. The guard sighs.

“The Regent Lord is apparently unhappy with what the heir did to you the other night, and wishes the council to hear of it.” So it had been night then, and it was at least the next day now. Damen still hadn't seen any windows in this damned place. Jord narrows his eyes as he continues, tone edging on accusatory, “even though it was just a routine binding, and provoked besides. You wouldn't happen to know anything about why he thinks it was so out-of-line, would you?”

Damen does his best to hide the glare he feels coming over his face, instead tugging the shirt on over his head. “What could I have done? I've been out cold since, remember?”

It's a tight squeeze, but he manages to wiggle into the garment. Once it's hanging from his shoulders he recognizes it as a similar tunic to what Nicaise and Erasmus had worn, silky and sheer and tantalizingly short on their lithe frames, not to mention his massive one, and  suddenly he's very, very grateful for the fact that he's been at least left with his pants. “Is this… some kind of uniform for the living, here?”

Jord doesn't comment on his earlier objections, instead continuing to hold his odd look, ask if Damen is continually saying things that don't make sense, or should be obvious. “It's what the feeders wear. They're the only other mortals here, besides you, so I guess you could call it a uniform? We haven't had one as big as you in ages, though, not since the Regent Lord came around.”

Once Damen's been properly dressed, Jord gives him a perfunctory look up and down before leading him back into the labyrinth of dismally ornate corridors.

As he did on the way from the infirmary, Damen tries to keep a mental map of the twists and turns they take, so that when the chance to escape comes he will be ready for it. While Jord seems to know the way effortlessly, however, Damen struggles to count doors and distinguish one type of damask wallpaper from another. It's as if the chateau is designed to be as difficult to navigate as possible, and Damen realizes with sinking hope that it probably is.

“So, you don't take a lot of prisoners that aren't feeders,” Damen asks, once he's given up trying to keep track of the order of left turns from right. “Is that what you intend to happen to me?”

Jord shrugs, not bothering to look back. “Dunno, the Regent Lord said he wanted to turn you, didn't he? You belong to the heir, though. So, probably nothing will happen to you, unless his uncle lets him kill you.”

Damen suppresses a shiver. “What do you mean, nothing?”

Another shrug. “The heir doesn't take feeders. And he definitely isn't gonna turn you.”

Damen frowns, furrowing his brow. “How does he eat, if he doesn't take feeders?” Laurent's particular brand of lazy arrogance seems perfectly suited to using those who are too weak to fight back. “Why does he keep them around if he's not going to use them?”

The answer to that must have been obvious and stupid, because Jord looks back at him again, “They're not his, the Regent Lord keeps them. And the council. The heir never feeds, at least not where people can see it.”

“Never?” Damen frowns further. “Why?” Laurent had hardly been one to shy away from grand acts of cruelty. Though if the Regent apparently objected to what he'd done to Damen, perhaps he preferred to keep his cruelty behind closed doors, where it couldn't be interrupted.

“Modest? Feeding’s more intimate than you realize, as a mortal, and you've seen him. He's all laced up, ice cold, and not just in the regular vampire way. A shame, really; what I wouldn't give to get a leg over him, but what can you do?” Jord shrugs. “Maybe he's a vegetarian, y’know, only drinking from squirrels and such. Or maybe he just likes the hunt. His brother was the same way, when he was around, shy about feeding.”

Damen doesn't respond, instead pouring all his will into keeping his face neutral, first at the mention of getting a leg over Laurent, as if Jord had just expressed his desire to rail a poisonous viper, and then at the mention of Auguste. Auguste had, of course, a veritable army of his own brood stewing in Marlas when the huntsmen had raided it, when Damen had killed him; there was no way he would have shied from feeding.

Fortunately, Jord takes no suspicion from his lack of response, and they continue the rest of the way in silence.

 

The chamber they're let into is much larger than Damen had expected. And, for the first time since waking up in the marble basement of this hellish castle, there are windows, and he can see the sky.

Jord was not kidding when he said they were going to court; the room is like the central hall of a lavish grand cathedral where the kings of old might have ruled, with two tiers of terraces for vampiric courtiers to look on from above, and a great raised dias to one end on which the seats of the council and the throne of the Vampire Lord rest, haloed by great arches of stained glass. Damen’s eyes rove over the windows, depicting scenes of the founding of the De Vere clan and their conquests, and beyond that, the soothing expanse of night. Outside. Damen would only need to break one of the windows, in the day, when none here would dare risk the sunlight, and he’d be free of this hellhole.

He glances over the council, six beasts, all old and distinguished and pensive-looking, and the Regent Lord on the throne between them. And then, he looks to Laurent.

Laurent does not have a seat on the dias, but rather is standing before it, a lone figure dwarfed by the grandeur of the court. For the first time, Damen takes notice of how just how young he seems to be-- turned on the first dawnings of adulthood, no doubt, while all those around him are far further on in years. His posture is straight and haughty, though, chin held high and gaze even and demanding of respect in spite of his apparent youth, the only fracture in  his cool visage appearing when Damen is shoved forward into the room, stumbling to a stand beside him.

Damen observes the slightest twitch in Laurent’s jaw, gaze trained on him with familiar cold spite for just a moment, before returning to observe the council, as if Damen were a fly on the wall-- unpleasant, but ultimately insignificant. The pressure he feels around his wrists, around his throat, from Laurent’s bindings, remains threatening even as Laurent's attentions shift.

“Now that you have kept us all waiting on the testimony of a dog, uncle,” he says, voice unaffected, “What trick is it that you wish for him to perform?”

“We have all heard your snide remarks, nephew, now it is time to be silent and listen to what others have to say.” The Regent, voice also unaffected.

Damen expects Laurent to have a snappy retort, but surprisingly, he keeps quiet; his only perceivable reaction to his uncle’s succinct shutdown is a brief wave of tension threatening around Damen's wrists. The Regent, satisfied, turns to Damen, “Hunter, please tell the council what wounds my nephew inflicted upon you that caused you to awake in the infirmary today.”

Damen can feel the danger in the question, the acute memory of Laurent's hands around his wrists, around his neck, and the fiery pain that followed dancing in his skin. He keeps his gaze trained on the windows, not meeting the Regent’s eye and  _ certainly  _ not meeting Laurent's, and slowly, he raises his hands from his sides for the court to see.

He expects resistance, expects Laurent to force them down and steal his breath in one stroke of will, but there is no response from the contemptuous presence beside him. “It was some kind of blood binding ritual, so that he could control my hands. If you weren't going to let him kill me, he said, then he'd make me serve him.”

“And, uncle, is that not what you requested?” Laurent chimes in, voice even, “That I forge a mangy flea-ridden hunter into something fitting to serve the line De Vere?”

Damen watches a muscle slide in the Regent’s neck, in agitation. “Do not interrupt, Laurent. Hunter, was it these bindings that put you in the infirmary?”

Another question impossible to respond to without incurring the wrath of one party or another. Damen feels acutely like a rabbit, darting between two warring wolves. “No,” he answers, pointedly keeping his gaze away from Laurent's. “The heir bound my wrists, and then put one around my neck, and then when I provoked him he--”

He inhales, sharp. He cannot breathe, the air squeezed from his lungs for just a moment, just long enough to stifle the words in his throat, before his breath is returned to him in harsh, shuddering gasps. He steals a glance at Laurent, openly contemptuous. Laurent's jaw is tight; he shuts his eyes once, slowly, before training them again on the Regent Lord. Arrogant prick, Damen thinks, seething as he struggles to calm his lungs, I hope it was worth damning yourself over.

“Uncle, I--”

“No. Be silent, Laurent, and listen.” The Regent’s voice echoes off the vaulting, apparently as exhausted with Laurent's petulance as Damen is. He stands, looming over his nephew, and sighs, adopting once more the manner of a parent scolding a disobedient child.

“You are treading on thin ice, nephew. You have done nothing but waste time these past ten years, and now when I have taken it upon myself to deliver an opportunity of redemption right into your very lap, you scorn my charity and deny yourself and the empire out of childish contempt. If you find the huntsman unfit to be the first of your brood, then you may discuss your reasons for believing as such with me, in private. If not, I expect him to be turned as soon as his injuries have healed, or I will take it as a final sign that you do not wish to accept the responsibilities required of the title you hope to inherit. Is that clear, Laurent?”

Damen expects more venomous words from Laurent’s tongue, expects this argument to go back and forth in circles for hours, knowing that these creatures do not experience fatigue in the same way humans do, but to his surprise, Laurent drops his gaze, and mumbles, “I understand, uncle.” Almost demure, if you did not know him for a snake.

In the Regent’s stern face, a spore of remorse blooms. “Laurent, it is not fair to me to be made to play the villain in this, but it is something that must be done. I know you are capable of pleasant obedience, when you do not insist upon these pointlessly destructive rebellions. Prove to me, and to the council, that you can do what is expected of you, and your transgressions will be generously overlooked.”

“Yes, uncle.” And then, voice a picture of innocence, “Thank you, uncle. May I meet with the hunter now, so that I might better ascertain whether he is fit to be the first of my brood?”

“So long as there are no more accidents, nephew.”

Laurent dips into a bow, taking this as dismissal from his uncle’s scolding, and turns to face Damen, and Jord a few feet further, expression calm and cool. “Have the dear hunter taken to my chambers, Jord. I will be there shortly.”

Damen feels his throat constrict against his will, enough to be uncomfortable without being noticeable to the court or the council, the only evidence of Laurent's carefully-hidden cruelty. Jord gives pause, for a moment, brow furrowed. “Your chambers, m’lord, and not the dungeon? Respectfully, is that wise?”

“There is no need for concern, I assure you. I only wish to see what he's truly made of.”

 

When Damen and Jord arrive in Laurent's chambers, after another silent trek through the impossible labyrinth of the chateau, Laurent is already there.

Damen is then, forcefully, stripped of his shirt, again ( _ “Did you mean to offer yourself to me as a meal, hunter, dressing like this? How distasteful.” _ ), and bound tightly to a chair by his arms and ankles, only managing to bust Jord’s lip in the ensuing struggle, thanks to Laurent's impenetrable mental hold on his wrists.

“I would say he's quite unpredictable, Jord, wouldn't you?” Laurent stalks circles around where Damen is tied, observing him from every angle, predatory. “Such a bloodthirsty barbarian would make an unreliable ally at best, a traitor at worst, turned or no. Don't you agree?”

“Seems undeniably risky, m’lord,” Jord agrees, muffled as he applies pressure to his lip to stem the trickle of blood.

Laurent's chambers lack the somber extravagance of the rest of the chateau, managing to achieve only somber. They are in the entry parlor, furnished with low reclining couches and receiving chairs, to one of which Damen is tied, and bookshelves lining two walls in between doors to the rest of Laurent's suite. The third wall is hung with deep blue curtains, a thick velvety damask to match the fabric of Laurent's tight-laced jacket, and behind them, windows. Damen's heart leaps at the prospect. All he has to do is free his arms, somehow, and wait for day.

“You are a snake,” is all Damen can manage to snarl in response, straining against his bindings and the force of Laurent's will.

“And you are a dog,” Laurent says, with too much relish, “whom my uncle has somehow brought to heel. Tell me, who did he send to you in the infirmary, to put his words in your mouth?”

And then, when Damen refuses to dignify him with an answer, “Jord, who else was there, beside Paschal? Who is our little canary?”

“There was a feeder, m’lord--”

“No!” Damen yelps, and immediately regrets it, as the room goes suddenly still and quiet, both vampires turning to face him. Laurent's chilled blue eyes are trained curiously on his face, scrutinizing, threatening. He feels his breath constrict against his will, finds it hard to swallow.

“Have you made a friend, dear hunter? Go on.”

To remain silent now would doom not only him, but Erasmus, as well. Damen takes an uneasy breath. “The feeder is innocent, he told me nothing of your uncle.” And then, biting back bitter fury, “He was unconscious half the time, anyway, after one of your kind drained him near to death. The other half the time, he spent telling me of all the cruel things you  _ monsters _ \--”

He is cut off-- his words, his breath-- strangled sounds escaping from him as Laurent tightens his grip around Damen's throat with a look of icy indifference. His vision is fuzzing at the edges by the time his breath is returned to him, chest heaving and shuddering.

“Jord, go to the infirmary and speak with Paschal, see if the hunter is telling the truth about this feeder. Have him stitch up your lip, in the meantime, and tell him the hunter is a bloodthirsty brute who attacked you the moment he had a chance. I will deal with the rest here myself.”

Jord gives one obedient nod and bows out of the room, and just like that Damen is again alone with a viper.

“So, hunter. You like to kill monsters, but don't like it when monsters kill your own back. Is that it?” Laurent voice coos to him, baiting. Damen does his best to keep his own voice grounded, expression stoic.

“Killing an innocent is monstrous on its own. Keeping feeders, pushing innocents to the brink of death, over and over, with no escape and no release, is beyond cruelty, even for you.”

“Even for me?” Laurent tilts his head, his loathing thinly veiled behind curiosity. Laurent is toying with him.

“Jord said you did not make use of them. I can't fathom why, except that maybe you like the kill, and don't enjoy prey that's already been gutted for you.”

“Maybe I like the kill,” Laurent repeats, bite growing in his voice, the tips of his fangs visible. Damen ignores the threat, and swallows his pride.

“I am prepared to make a deal with you.”

“A deal with me.” Laurent's blonde brows creep upward in surprise and sadistic delight, and if Damen could he would very much like to punch that finely-sculpted face and ruin this entire plan. He thinks of Erasmus, frail and fearful in this den of ravenous demons, and pushes through his anger.

“Free the feeders here, get them somewhere safe, all of them. Your uncle keeps them, so doubtless you will enjoy the chance to strike a petty blow at him in the process.”

Laurent regards him with vaguely disgusted interest. “And if I do?”

“...if you do, then I'll do whatever you ask of me. I'll make a scene, be the bloodthirsty brute you want your uncle to think I am. Or I'll be the most docile hunter you could ever imagine. You could--” He takes a harsh breath, and watches Laurent's blue eyes go wide for but an instant. “You could turn me, if you really wanted, though I've gathered that you don't want to at all. Just-- free them from the horrors of this place. They've done nothing to deserve it, as you say I have, they are innocent in this. Please.”

Laurent is silent for a long moment, staring Damen down with an inscrutable expression. Then, “That's a very interesting offer, hunter,” he says, before his face twists into a sneer of cold contempt. “Tell me, hunter, had you already joined the Akielon dogs when they raided Marlas?”

Damen's heart stills in his chest, the righteous rage he feels on behalf of Erasmus suddenly overcome with fear. He keeps his face steeled. “I was there. We all were. Why--”

“There were feeders there, too. Did you know? A whole den of them, twice the size of the menagerie here. Auguste, too, preferred prey that had not been gutted, to use your words. But he kept some on hand for the courtiers who did not mind feeding on the helpless.”

Damen's heart is thumping, it's a small miracle that Laurent cannot hear it, as he paces back and forth across the room like a cornered predator.

“Of course,” his blue eyes narrow, piercing, “I don't expect you to know, considering your huntsmen burnt it to the ground without ever finding them. What was it you said about killing innocents, that it was monstrous?”

Bile rises in Damen's throat, he feels a muscle twitch in his jaw, trying to keep it down. “You're lying, they would have checked before they--”

When they first broke into the manor, sixteen-year-old Damen had run straight up to Auguste’s chambers with his father and Nikandros covering his tail, too glory-drunk on the prospect of heroism to pay attention to the lower halls. On the way out, of course, he had been unconscious. “The Akielon Huntsmen swear an oath to protect the innocent from the creatures of the night, we would not have left them to such a fate. That's why I'm… Why I--”

Laurent's grin is cold and terrible. “An oath to protect the innocent? That's quite interesting to hear, too, hunter. Because I was there, that night, thirteen years old, and as the court fled the wreckage I could hear their screams as the manor burned, from a mile away. But I suppose you consider that a mercy, compared to leaving them with us, don't you?”

Damen's blood runs cold, his skin turning ashen. Laurent had been there, Laurent had seen-- he couldn't have seen. Damen hadn't been seen by anyone, not anyone he'd left alive. He swallows hard, trying to keep the tremor from his voice. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I have a theory about the Akielon Huntsmen, you see, about all hunters.” Laurent comes very close to Damen, looming over him where he sits bound, new depths of loathing formed in the harsh blue of his eyes. “You like to play heroes, to give yourselves to the  _ noble hunt  _ in alleged service of the good and innocent. But really, you just like the kill. A monster provides an acceptable target for you to wet your knife, and none of you really give a damn about how many innocents lie in between a vampire's heart and your stake. So no, I will not accept your deal.”

Hot fury bubbles up in Damen and he strains against his bonds, as cathartic as it is futile, anything to get close enough to Laurent to hurt him, to wring his pale neck, for all the good it would do. “You are wrong. You are cruel and you are--”

Laurent cuts off his breath, choking the words from him and leaving him panting. “You wanted a beast to fight against, did you not? I have a counter-offer: you will be perfectly servile to me, and in return I will not burn the feeders here alive, as your dogs did at Marlas. Does that sound fair, hunter?”

Damen feels like he's been struck with words alone, chills running through his nerves as he processes the depravity of what Laurent is prepared to do, just to spite him. He imagines Erasmus, terrified and helpless. He had promised to free them. “You… You are spineless, you are--”

“A monster?” There is venom in Laurent's smile. “But isn't that what you want me to be?”

Without another word, Laurent turns on the polished heel of his boot and disappears further into his chambers, and Damen is left alone to fight uselessly against  his bonds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you ALL, AGAIN, for your continued flow of amazing comments and encouragement!! Seems like a chapter a week will be the easiest pace for me to maintain, especially since they keep getting longer and longer! Laurent is so mean in this one, it was almost hard to write, but I swear he only gets better. Next chapter is where the real fun begins :^)
> 
> Also, I don't know why, but the idea of vampire Jord is just so silly to me! He's such a normal dude, I guess, it's hard to imagine him as a fearsome creature of the night.


	5. Pacisceris cum Diabolo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damen deals poorly with his captivity and curses his captor's name, until Laurent comes to him with a proposition.

Damen spends another day tied to that chair.

At first he tries to struggle against it, tear the rope, the wood, something-- but he hasn't eaten since he's been trapped here and his strength fails him, and Laurent's iron grip on his wrists holds tight besides, wherever the beast has disappeared to.

At some point, Jord returns, split lip stitched up, and pointedly ignores Damen's shouts as he passes through the sameby door Laurent had, hours earlier.

At some point, Damen considers rocking the chair over to the windows, inch  by inch, and throwing himself through them, but with the thick blue curtains in place he has no way of knowing how high up he is until it's too late, and he doubts his ribs would survive the jump regardless. And if the chair topples halfway to the window, and Laurent comes to investigate the commotion only to find him helpless on the floor, well-- he's suffered too much humiliation here already to make that option seem worth-while.

At some point, a meek little servant comes by (a vampire, of course, but commonly pretty) with brown bread and red bean soup, the same that was given to Erasmus, and Damen's stomach growls in desperation. She tears the bread into bites and offers them, one by one, for him to eat from her fingers with a bland, practiced stoicism drawn in her colorless face, and Damen is too weak to refuse the humiliation of his own helplessness. She then feeds him soup by the spoonful, like a child, and Damen's only solace is that Laurent does not emerge from his chambers to watch.

At some point, soft wispy reflections of sunlight creeping through the smothering darkness of the curtains, sleep and exhaustion claim him.

“Rise and shine, hunter.”

It is dusk when he jolts to consciousness, light gone from the windows. Laurent's blue eyes stare back at him, ravenous and animalistic in the darkness. He does not look pleased. Damen resists the groggy temptation to spit in his perfect face.

“My uncle is hosting a masquerade tonight,” he says as if the mere thought is a chore to him, tone a bitter mockery of joy. “It will doubtless be a night of spectacle, with at least two attempted murders and several scandalous affairs occurring before morning light, if my own experience with these sorts of events is any indication. The chateau will be filled with all sorts of prestigious and high-profile demons that I imagine you'd very much love to slaughter, and all will be toasting the death of Damianos and the inevitable downfall of his hunting hounds.”

Damen's stomach lurches at the mention of his name, feels a ghost of pain in the scars across his heart. He steels his face, as not to show anything to Laurent that might give himself away. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I want to know if you can behave like a man, rather than a wild beast. Or at least a trained pet.”

Damen glowers. “You are considering dragging me along? I thought you wanted your uncle to think me unfit for polite company.”

“That was before you handed me your own leash, dog. I'd rather the council see how well I've brought you to heel.”

Laurent sneers, baring fangs, and rage burns through the fog of sleep as Damen recalls his threat the previous night. “Or you'll murder all the feeders in cold blood. I remember,” he pushes through grit teeth.

Laurent casts a long look at him, bright blue eyes steady and unblinking, unreadable. “I'm glad we are in understanding, then. A masquerade is a dangerous event, hunter.”

Damen opens his mouth to spit some venomous insult, brows twisting downward, as if somehow that might startle the arrogant creature before him into realizing the horrible depths of his own cruelty, but Laurent whisks the words from his throat before they meet his lips, and continues on, “My uncle favors these types of soirées, of course; the extravagance, the intrigue, the potential for depravity all fit his tastes quite well. And of course, the anonymity of a mask provides an ideal setting for negotiations between sworn enemies.”

Damen can only simmer in rage as the vampire waxes on, bragging about all the atrocities he plans to subject Damen to, but he knows better by now than to attempt to interrupt his captor.

Laurent seems to notice his scornful disinterest, because he pauses in his taunting to level Damen another glare. “ _ Why am I telling you this? _ That's what you wanted to know, wasn't it? Answer me.”

Damen swallows, testing his throat to see if he will be allowed to speak. “Yes,” comes his answer, tentative, and then “I suspect you want my cooperation before your guests, which I am in no position to refuse. Given your threat.”

He doesn't think Laurent's gaze could hold any more malice if he tried. The words look almost painful to force out, something Damen takes petty satisfaction in. “I want you to know that I find your attempt at brokering a deal to be pathetic and laughable. You are entirely in my thrall, hunter, and to think that I need your cooperation to get what I want out of you, which is very little to begin with, would be insulting to a creature with lesser confidence.”

Damen grinds his teeth, shifting in his prison of a chair, and wills his binds to fall away so that he can wrap his hands around Laurent's slender porcelain neck and squeeze.

Laurent takes a measured breath, with no change in his expression. “A masquerade means an evening of chaos, would certainly be a shame if someone were to wander into the menagerie, unguarded, and release the feeders held there to freedom and safety beyond the chateau, unnoticed amidst the revelry.”

Damen reacts as if he's been struck. His eyes narrow, in pause, breath held in disbelief.

This is… unexpected; the first thing to come from Laurent's mouth that is close to not being cruelty, and the memory comes unbidden to him of Laurent and Nicaise in the infirmary, where he had been almost playful with the too-young little hellion of a pet.

This is a trick, he knows, another lie designed to weaken his morale, or some demonic power play against the Regent Lord that he is to serve in as a pawn. Another game, as everything is to these creatures.

And yet, if it means escape from this hell for Erasmus, for all of them, whatever the motivation, it could be worth it.

Damen tests his breath, to see if he is allowed to speak. “Why?”

“Why?” Laurent quirks a blonde brow, expression scathing. “Why would it be unfortunate for my uncle to lose his prized collection of simpering bloodbags, and the primary source of the council’s vitality, in a momentous lapse of judgement?”

Laurent has both answered his underlying question and dodged it, all at once. Damen looks over the beast before him, seeking a motive. “There's got to be something else, there are easier ways to piss off your uncle-- ones that involve leaving me tied here.”

Laurent's face is a tight grimace. “There are.” Another dodged question. “So let me make this clear. You will defer to me, and no one else, save perhaps my uncle, but cautiously. You will not interact with the other courtiers if you can help it, but when you must, you owe respect to me alone. The menagerie will be kept under lock and key, but individual feeders may be loaned out to guests for the evening. We will try to release the majority of them, but it will not be possible to--”

“Not good enough,” Damen says, stonily.  _ We _ , Laurent had said.

It is the vampire’s turn to regard Damen suspiciously, but he remains resolute, back straight where he is tied.

“Not good enough,” Laurent repeats, probing for meaning. “You toe the line, hunter, perhaps I ought to have you gagged for the evening if you plan on being this bold. You seem to overestimate how much trust the court puts in me.  _ ‘Ah yes, let me just gather all the feeders, whom I never partake in, for entirely wholesome means I assure you.’ _ That would go over well, I'm certain.”

Damen could deck him, were he not bound. “If the court doesn't trust you, that's your own fault, and I can't say I blame them.” He tries to keep the agitation from his voice, knowing it will earn him no ground no matter how irritating Laurent might be. “If we leave any one behind, they will suffer the full extent of the council’s displeasure by themselves. We have to free them all, every last one, tonight.”

Laurent gives him a long, cool look, and for a moment Damen's heart seizes in his chest, for fear that he'd overstepped his bounds and now Laurent would refuse him out of spite, both he and the feeders remaining imprisoned, and him tied to this infernal chair until he drops dead or worse.

But then something shifts, subtle, in those impossibly blue eyes, and Laurent nods. “I'll see what I can do.”

The plan is fairly straightforward; as straightforward as Damen can expect from this place. They will strike while the Regent Lord and the council are in delicate discussions of territory with the Vaskian wolf tribes, and are loathe to be disturbed. There will be a number of other dignitaries on which the escape can be blamed, most notably a lone envoy from the Akielon huntsmen here to discuss a temporary ceasefire in the chaos of Damianos’s death, which Damen detests out of loyalty but reluctantly concedes as the best option, teeth grit.

Before that, they must make sure all the feeders are returned to the menagerie, so that they all may be released in one fell swoop. This will be more difficult; they will not be loaned out willy-nilly, and those who are allowed to make use of them will scarcely wish to relinquish their conquests. The best course of action, as much as it turns Damen's stomach to allow it, is to encourage haste, and take the excuse of the feeder needing time to recover in order to return them to the menagerie. 

Damen is cautiously freed from his bonds under the watchful eyes of Jord. Jord, Laurent says, is loyal and can be trusted, but no one else (Damen asks, amused, if he himself can be trusted, which earns him silence and a glare that could strip paint.) He is fed pomegranate on toast and allowed to bathe, and then given clothing beyond the scant white tunic, far beyond: supple boots and trousers, and a finely-made black doublet embroidered with gold, ornate as it is outdated, but that's vampires for you.

Damen is feeling surprisingly confident, as comfortable as one can be when dealing with a demon in a den of demons, when Laurent emerges from his chambers, dressed for the masquerade. Damen's breath catches in his throat. 

He is not clad, as Damen might have expected, in his usual severe navy, but in a handsome white tailcoat, with dramatic puffed sleeves and stripes of gold filigree. The gold of his hair, usually in a cascade around his shoulders, is tied up elegantly in a bun atop the crown of his head, pinned with three striking plumes in a royal blue, and around his shoulders now sits a mantle of similar feathers, held in place by a gold chain that hangs across his chest, adorned with a jeweled ornamental lock and key.

Completing the ensemble is an avian mask, intricately carved feathers in blue and white obscuring the top half of his face, with a gold-leafed beak below, balanced on the fine bridge of his nose and secured with a pale blue ribbon. He is disguised as a songbird, and the striped coat his cage. When Damen can think again, he might find his captor’s choice in costume ironic.

It takes him longer than he might like to be able to think again, long enough that Laurent levels him a chilly gaze through the holes in his mask, the rich blue of his eyes only adding to the extravagance of the ensemble. It must only be the stark difference to Laurent's usual attire that is giving him pause, Damen thinks bitterly, as he forces himself to avert his eyes away, as heat rises in his cheeks. He is distracted by the sheer opulence of it all, and not the milky shade of Laurent's skin against the white of his coat, or the way it draws taught around his waist.

“Admiring my costume?” Laurent asks with blonde brows raised beneath his mask, vicious tone just daring Damen to quip back. “It is a masquerade, after all. Don't worry, I’ve provided one for you, too.”

Laurent tosses him a shaggy fur capelet, brown with a bronzey sheen to it that accents the embroidery on his doublet, and a mask styled like a hound, in black and gold. It is his turn to level Laurent a glance as he swings the cape around his shoulders and affixes the mask to his face. The guise is an obvious choice, an Akielon dog dressed up as one, but likely to amuse the court, and Damen concedes that it could be worse.

As if on cue, Laurent grins, and pulls the final piece to his ensemble from inside one of his coat pockets, and Damen feels the warmth in his face drain, replaced by cold rancor.

It is a dog collar, black leather with golden spikes, in perfect planned coordination with the rest of his outfit, dangling a gold chain leash. Again, the urge to deck Laurent bubbles up within him.

“No.”

“No?” Laurent repeats. “Then I suppose I will leave you here and attend the masquerade myself. It's your choice, dog, tied up here all night or tied to me all night.”

Without the wellbeing of the feeders on the line, he might have made a different choice. As it stands, even, the choice is more difficult than it probably should be. With the most hateful glower he can manage, he snatches the collar from Laurent and, begrudgingly, affixes it snugly around his neck.

“There's a good boy,” Laurent coos mockingly as he takes up the leash, wrapped delicately around his slender wrist. “Come now, we'll be fashionably late as it is.”
    
    
        
    
        
    
        
    
    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter after a long break D: I'm happy with the way it turned out but it was a sloooog to get through (and this part ended up being a lot longer than expected-- if I didn't break it up it'd be like a 5000 word chapter!) Hopefully it's fun enough to excuse a lower-than-usual wordcount!
> 
> Thank you again for all the amazing comments and continued support~

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea and furiously wrote it all in the span of two days instead of doing any homework (it has been beta-read, however!) We'll see how far I can get with it before I lose steam, but for now I'm pretty enamored with what I have planned. This is my first time writing for Captive Prince, so all your feedback is much appreciated! Thank you all for reading!


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